Monthly Archives: August 2017

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It has been an absolute pleasure to watch the success of the interns that have worked with our group and have proliferated to further the Native American Bar nationwide. As we are preparing to review a new set of Procopio Native American Internship applications for the summer of 2018, we thought that it would be a good time to share with you and applaud the accomplishments of our past interns. Congratulations to all. We look forward to continue working with you as colleagues in your professional careers! For students interested in joining this great network of tomorrow’s Native American legal leaders, applications are open through October 31, 2017.

Eric Abeita (2014), from Isleta Pueblo, is a member of the New Mexico Bar and holds the position of General Counsel for the Pueblo of Pojoaque in Santa Fe New Mexico. Eric is a 2015 graduate of University of New Mexico College of Law School, where he was the Managing Editor for the Tribal Law Journal and gathered valuable legal clinic experience with the Southwest Indian Law Clinic.

Nichole (Nikke) Alex (2015) is a member of the Navajo Nation and graduated from the University of New Mexico College of Law. Nikke works with the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Natural Resources Unit where she is working on abandoned uranium matters including former mine site cleanups, former mill site cleanups and remediation. In her last year of law school, Nikke was a judicial extern with the Pueblo of Isleta Tribal Court where she assisted with developing a Juvenile Detention Alternative Program and a Peacemaking Program to promote a non-adversarial forum for resolving disputes where Pueblo tradition and culture are utilized to promote healing. In May 2016, she was able to meet with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor on behalf of the Tribal Court, as part of Justice Sotomayor’s outreach to learn more about the difficult issues faced by Indian Country. Additionally, during her law school career, Nikke investigated the linkage between mineral extraction and violence against Native women and has worked with tribes to implement safeguards to protect Native women and children.

Fernando Anzaldua (2012) is a citizen of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Fernando is a federal attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, where he has experienced significant success in federal court, administrative hearings, and bankruptcy court. He has successfully first-chaired a number of trials on behalf of individual employees, unions, and employers. He is a 2013 graduate of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University where he also earned an Indian Legal Certificate. He also gives back to his community by serving on the Executive Board for Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association.

Kele Bigknife (2016) is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School currently awaiting California Bar results. He is currently working in San Diego at Higgs Fletcher & Mack, emphasizing litigation practice. Mr. Bigknife was a member of the Editorial Board for the Michigan Business and Entrepreneurial Law Review and was a student attorney for the Michigan Veterans Legal Clinic, representing veterans and their immediate families in civil legal matters. He previously worked at a Southern California law firm where he gained litigation experience and assisted in drafting depublication requests to the California Supreme Court in issues regarding tribal sovereignty

Daune Cardenas (2017) is a citizen of Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona and is entering her third year at the University of Arizona James F. Rogers College of Law. Prior to joining Procopio as an intern, Ms. Cardenas interned at the Office of the Attorney General for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe for two years, working primarily in ICWA case files and developing methods to prosecute Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) cases within Tribal Court. Ms. Cardenas is active in the Native American Bar Association’s Indian Child Welfare Act Subcommittee and is a social director of the Native American Law Students Association Chapter for the University of Arizona. Ms. Cardenas also recently received the Native American Bar Association of Arizona’s scholarship for community activities.

Stephanie Conduff (2013) is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, Oklahoma, District Court of The Chickasaw Nation, The Supreme Court of Cherokee Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Osage Nation and Chickasaw Nation. She lives and works in her community in Oklahoma as an attorney, business owner of Leche Lounge and training Native entrepreneurs on best practices for profitability through sustainable development. Stephanie currently works as Director of Special Projects and Legal Counsel for Onefire Holding Company which a diversification venture capital firm of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She launched Leche Lounge, a manufacturing company for portable lactation suites – or Mother’s Rooms – for use in airports, the workplace, stadiums and military bases worldwide. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Stephanie served as a judicial clerk for the late Honorable Chief Justice Barbara Smith of the Chickasaw Nation Supreme Court and is certified to assist tribal courts as a Peacemaker. Stephanie was with Procopio for three years first as a summer intern, then as a law clerk and worked full-time for the firm as an Associate until 2016.

Trinidad Contreras (2011) is a citizen of the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel and is a descendant of the Pala Band of Mission Indians. He is a member of the Alaska Bar and currently Assistant Municipal Attorney for the City and Borough of Juneau. His practice is primarily in civil law but occasionally works on criminal matters. He is the 2016-2017 Secretary for the Juneau Bar Association. He is married to Madeline Soboleff Levy, general counsel for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska. Together, they are the proud parents of Sofia, age 6, and Guillermo “Memo,” 3 months.

Anna Hohag (2015) is a citizen of the Bishop Paiute Tribe and born and raised in the Eastern Sierras in Bishop, California. She is a recent graduate of the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, where she served as the President of the UA Native American Law Students Association. Anna is currently awaiting California Bar results and working with the Bishop office of California Indian Legal Services, which allows her to work on matters for her home tribal government. Anna was the University of Arizona 2017 recipient of the Rose Davis Public Service Award and the University of Arizona Native American Student Affairs (NASA) Outstanding Graduate Service Award in recognition of her service to Native youth at the University of Arizona. During Law school, she also served as the Area 1 Representative (CA, NV, HI, AZ) for the National Native American Law Students Association and is a Board Member on the California Indian Law Association.

Christopher Scott(2014) is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law (2015), where he was the Note and Comment Editor for the American Indian Law Review. A member of the Texas Bar, Christopher is currently working as Counsel for Governmental Affairs at Insperity in Houston Texas. Previously, Christopher was an associate with Ernst & Young in Dallas, Texas, working in labor/employment law in their People Advisory Services Department.

Jaclyn Simi (2012) is a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. She graduated with honors from Notre Dame de Namur University and received her law degree from California Western Law School (2012), where she was president of the Native American Law Students Association. Ms. Simi is currently an associate with the San Diego office of Ogletree Deakins, practicing employment litigation and counseling with an emphasis on sports law. Ms. Simi has been named a San Diego Super Lawyers Rising Star for 2016 and 2017 and to San Diego Business Journal’s Best of the Bar list (2106). She is an active member of the Lawyers Club of San Diego.

Karli Sultzbaugh (2017) is a member of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians and is currently entering her third year at UCLA School of Law. Ms. Sultzbaugh, a Native San Diegan, has strong interest in Tribal environmental issues with experience in the Tribal Legal Development Clinic at UCLA. She is the President of the Native American Law Students Association at UCLA and one of the staff editors for the Indigenous Peoples Journal of Law, Culture and Resistance. Ms. Sultzbaugh also is a previous litigation intern at Compassion Over Killing which enhanced her strong writing and research skills, and worked as an undergraduate intern at the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in San Diego.

Heather Torres (2016) is a citizen of the Pueblo of San Ildefonso and Navajo Nation descendant. She is a recent graduate of UCLA School of Law and is awaiting California Bar results. She is currently a UC President’s Public Service Law Fellow at the Tribal Law & Policy Institute in West Hollywood, CA. She worked on Capitol Hill as a research assistant for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs under Chairman, Senator John Barrasso (WY) while joining a national network of Udall Scholars. During law school, Ms. Torres externed with the Children’s Law Center, Los Angeles in the Indian Child Welfare Court. She was also Executive Editor of the Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance and Senior Editor for the Chicano/Latino Law Review. Ms. Torres has a Masters in Collaborative Educational Leadership. She also graduated Cum Laude from UCLA in English and American Indian Studies. She served as the President and Alumni Chair for NALSA at UCLA, volunteered with El Centro Legal: Education Rights Clinic, and taught law-related topics to local high school students in her spring semester.

Ted is head of the Native American Law practice group and primary editor for the Blogging Circle. Connect with Ted at ted.griswold@procopio.com and 619.515.3277.

In 2016, William M. Haney (2) published an excellent comprehensive analysis of issues arising in connection with tribal sovereignty over tribal airspace in Protecting Tribal Skies: Why Indian Tribes Possess the Sovereign Authority to Regulate Tribal Airspace. In this first of its kind article, Mr. Haney analyzed the importance of tribal sovereignty in a tribe’s own airspace and described potential objections that may be raised by the Federal Aviation Administration. The Blogging Circle published an article by Sandra L. Shippey on November 11, 2016 summarizing Mr. Haney’s article and discussing some of these issues, but our reference and link to Mr. Haney’s article did not appear in our article until after a reader clicked through to the entire article. We decided to re-issue and expand on the original article with personal contributions from and more visible credit to Mr. Haney.

Mr. Haney acknowledges in his article that any nation is entitled to “complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.” (3) He describes the unique sovereign status of Indian tribes in the United States as self-governing entities, which are also subject to the plenary power of the United States and regarded as “domestic dependent nations” under federal law. This status complicates the question of control over tribal airspace. (4)

To focus on these issues, Mr. Haney describes in his article a situation in 2009 with the Hualapai (wal-lah-pie) Tribe, a federally-recognized Indian tribe that lives on a reservation overlooking the western rim of the Grand Canyon. (5) The Hualapai Tribe has an airport on its land and relies, in part, on tourism to fund its tribal government and for income for its members. (6) Currently, the Tribe offers tour packages that can include spectacular views from the “Skywalk” (a glass bridge that enables visitors to walk beyond the rim of the Grand Canyon 4,000 feet above the Colorado River), helicopter, fixed wing and boat tours, and other excursions on the reservation.

Mr. Haney relates a 2009 incident in which a non-Indian freelance tour guide and photographer, Lionel de Antoni, flew a fan-powered paraglider over the Hualapai reservation without permission from the Hualapai Tribe. Mr. de Antoni began and ended his flight over the reservation from federal land adjacent to the reservation. Mr. de Antoni operated a freelance tourism business from the federal land and would regularly fly over the Tribe’s reservation, organize tours, post photos and sell them. (7) He did not obtain permission from the Tribe to fly over the Tribe’s reservation. (8)

This matter raised interesting legal issues regarding the confluence of Native American law and federal aviation law. Mr. Haney describes these issues in his article:

A central point of discussion that quickly emerged was whether the Hualapai Tribe has jurisdictional authority to impose sanctions on pilots who enter reservation airspace without prior authorization from the Tribe. Paul Charlton, an attorney representing the Hualapai Tribe in the case, stated plainly that the Hualapai Tribe has “the right to determine who will or will not fly over Hualapai territory.” A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) initially told a reporter that “[a] tribe has no authority over airspace and cannot charge people for using it,” but did not elaborate on the legal basis for this claim other than to assert “[t]he federal government has sole jurisdiction over the nation’s airspace.” (9)

The Hualapai Tribe and Mr. De Antoni settled their case, and to date, there is no definitive statutory or case law on whether a Tribe has any sovereign control over the airspace above its reservation. The FAA has not acknowledged that Tribes possess any sovereign authority in tribal airspace. However, according to Mr. Haney, several Indian Tribes have asserted such a right in their respective constitutions and tribal codes or acknowledged their sovereignty over tribal airspace in their civil ordinances. (e.g. Potawatomi Nation, White Earth Nation, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Coquille Indian Tribe). (10)

According to Mr. Haney’s article, tribal governments, as sovereign entities, are permitted to pass and enforce laws to protect the general welfare, health and safety of their citizens. (11) They have an inherent right to physically exclude non-members from reservation land and this right extends to Indians and non-Indians. (12) The question is whether this right to exclude covers tribal airspace. Tribes could assert that air traffic above tribal lands could pose a risk or threat to tribal citizens or the tribal government (especially low flying aircraft). (13) Tribes should have a right to protect its citizens from aircraft noise, air pollution, aviation accidents and other impositions from low-flying aircraft. (14) In the case of the Hualapai Tribe, the right to exclude could be for the purpose of protecting its own on-reservation airport from unauthorized flights and to control exploitation of its natural resources for unauthorized commercial gain that would protect tribal business interests. (15)

However, Mr. Haney acknowledges that there may be several potential objections to allowing tribal authority over tribal airspace. First, opponents may assert that Tribes are preempted by federal aviation law from exercising control over tribal airspace. (16) Second, opponents may argue that Indian tribes “have been divested of sovereignty in airspace and assertion of tribal jurisdiction in airspace – particularly over non-members – is inconsistent with the domestic dependent status of Indian tribes under federal law.” (17) Third, opponents may argue that Indian tribes do not possess regulatory jurisdiction over non-member pilots and therefore cannot enforce tribal regulations in airspace. (18)

Mr. Haney also acknowledges that the FAA aviation regulatory system is the “global safety standard against which other national aviation systems are measured.” (19) Would allowing tribes to control airspace above their land jeopardize the safety of the traveling public?

Mr. Haney proposes political and regulatory solutions to “the uncertain status of the ability of tribes to regulate tribal airspace and he argues that a cooperative relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government is necessary to protect tribal interests and the integrity of domestic aviation activities.” (20) Mr. Haney ultimately concludes that “[a]s with many issues affecting Indian tribes, federal legislation could be the key to bringing clarity to these issues by affirming the authority of tribes to regulate at least some aspects of tribal airspace.” (21) He also advocates for a cooperative approach with the FAA, given the federal agency’s authority and expertise in matters involving air safety in the United States. (22)

In 2015, while an Associate Attorney at the law firm Berkey Williams LLP, Mr. Haney filed a public comment on the FAA’s then-proposed (and since finalized) drone regulations. In the letter, Mr. Haney asked the FAA to initiate formal consultation with Indian tribes as it developed the new airspace regulations. In its response to public comments, the FAA acknowledged Mr. Haney’s request and comments with the following reply:

Consistent with Executive Order 13175, Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, and FAA Order 1210.20, American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Consultation Policy and Procedures, the FAA ensures that Federally Recognized Tribes (Tribes) are given the opportunity to provide meaningful and timely input regarding proposed Federal actions that have the potential to uniquely or significantly affect their respective Tribes. At this point, the FAA has not identified any unique or significant effects, environmental or otherwise, on tribes resulting from this rule. However, the FAA has entered into government-to-government consultation with the Northern Arapaho Nation on its general use of UAS. In addition, the Nez Pierce tribe has contacted FAA to discuss obtaining a section 333 exemption to operate small UAS under existing rules.

… The FAA notes, however, that state governments have historically been able to regulate the takeoffs and landings of aircraft within their state boundaries. The FAA anticipates that the Tribes would be able to exercise similar internal sovereignty with regard to the takeoffs and landings of small UAS within their territories. Thus, while preemption is beyond the scope of this rule, the FAA will conduct outreach to tribes seeking information about their ability to regulate small UAS operations conducted within their territory to see how their concerns could be addressed within the broader UAS integration effort. (23)

On May 25, 2017, United States Senator Diane Feinstein introduced the Drone Federalism Act of 2017 in the United States Senate. The stated purpose of the Act is “[t]o preserve State, local, and tribal authorities and private property rights with respect to unmanned aircraft systems, and for other purposes.” (24) An acknowledgment of tribal concerns about the use of airspace by drones, the Act would require that the FAA, “[i]n prescribing regulations or standards related to civil unmanned aircraft systems, the [FAA] shall ensure that the authority of a State, local, or tribal government to issue reasonable restrictions on the time, manner, and place of operation of a civil unmanned aircraft system that is operated below 200 feet above ground level or within 200 feet of a structure is not preempted [by federal regulation of airspace].” (25) The Act would also require the FAA to “preserve, to the greatest extent practicable, legitimate interests of State, local, and tribal governments” in “prescribing regulations or standards related to civil unmanned aircraft systems…” (26)

According to Mr. Haney, the response by the FAA and the introduction of the Drone Federalism Act represent positive movement toward acknowledgment by the federal government that tribal governments have legitimate interests in regulating certain activities in tribal airspace. He believes that tribal governments have a real opportunity to work with their federal, state, and local counterparts to develop sensible solutions to airspace issues while respecting and promoting tribal sovereignty. Mr. Haney notes that the concerns of tribal governments about the uses of drones in airspace are shared by state and local governments, and that political movement toward the development of local regulatory solutions (27) presents a unique opportunity for tribes to align themselves with other governments on this issue.

Mr. Haney has raised some important issues and conflicts arising from Native American sovereignty and federal control of U.S. airspace. The FAA is not likely to easily accede jurisdiction over U.S. airspace, even if it is above tribal lands, especially for flights at higher altitudes. However, it would seem prudent for the FAA to work with tribes and allow them to realize sovereign control at least with respect to low flying flights over tribal lands or create regulations for flights over tribal lands, consistent with FAA standards.

Sandra Shippey is a member of the Native American Practice Group and the State Bar of California – Business Law Section Uniform Commercial Code Committee. Connect with Sandra at Sandra.shippey@procopio.com and 619.515.3226.

(1) This article was developed with editorial contributions and input from William M. Haney.

(2) William M. Haney is a Staff Attorney for the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Treasurer of the California Indian Law Association. Mr. Haney is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law and is licensed to practice law in the state of California. During law school, Mr. Haney was a Staff Member and Associate Editor of the UCLA Law Review and served as Secretary and Alumni Chair of the UCLA Native American Law Students Association. His practice areas include tribal governance, economic development, environmental law, intellectual property, employment, real estate, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the protection and promotion of tribal sovereignty. Mr. Haney is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

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The Procopio Blogging Circle is created by the Procopio Native American Practice Group, its friends and its colleagues. Blogging Circle is a forum to share legal news and ideas affecting Native American Communities.

Although the information contained herein is provided by professionals at Procopio, the content and information should not be used as a substitute for professional services. If legal or other professional advice is required, the services of a professional should be sought.